Finding Britain's butterflies

The male small tortoiseshell butterfly is fiercely defensive: throw a stick nearby and it leaps up like a Labrador retriever to attack it. The aptly named dingy skipper is the ugliest butterfly in Britain, and the painted lady migrates from as far as Africa, arriving tatty and dishevelled with just enough time to mate and lay her eggs before she dies.

Patrick Barkham fell in love with butterflies as a boy. In The Butterfly Isles he picks up his binoculars and sets out to find all of Britain's 59 butterfly species in just one year. Barkham writes with schoolboy excitement, and his enthusiasm is infectious.